France has secured commitments for an extra 200,000 tonnes of diesel a month from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the French presidency has said. Each of the two Gulf states has pledged 100,000 tonnes, with no end date attached to the deliveries.
The commitments were announced on October 20 during French President Emmanuel Macron’s tour of Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. They followed the October 17 protests against the cost of living, which spiralled into the worst rioting France has seen in years.
Added to the 95,000 tonnes a month promised by Saudi Arabia for October and November, the pledges take France to 295,000 tonnes a month, or just over 10 per cent of national consumption, the Élysée said. TotalEnergies, whose chief executive Patrick Pouyanné is travelling with Macron, is to buy and ship the fuel.
Pouyanné said the agreements would reassure the French public and that the country would not run out of diesel in February, according to AFP. He had warned earlier that the market could tighten further because of Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries.
Kuwait has separately committed to sending diesel and kerosene to the French overseas territories of Mayotte and Réunion, the presidency said. Those cargoes are to be routed through Oman to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran has blockaded the strait since the US-Iran war began at the end of February, closing the main export route for Gulf energy. Diesel has been the worst affected fuel, with EU prices at record highs and the French average above €2.30 a litre, about 44 per cent up on a year earlier.
The Gulf cargoes come on top of 10 million barrels released from French strategic reserves, a measure announced on October 7 that the government said would take 12 to 18 cents a litre off pump prices from November. Those savings have yet to reach the forecourt and the Élysée has given no estimate of what the Gulf deliveries might save drivers.
The presidency framed the deals as a return on French reliability as a defence partner to the Gulf monarchies during the war. Neither Paris nor its Arab partners expect the blockade to lift soon.
The monarchies fear the fighting could intensify once the US midterm elections are out of the way on November 3, according to Le Monde. French diplomats have warned that after eight months of crisis the region risks settling into a grey zone that is neither war nor peace, feeding instability for years to come.
